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How to easily rename Git master branch to main (medium.com)
1 points by ggerritsen 2202 days ago
1 comments

In the context of Git, "master" is not used in the sense of a master/slave relationship but as a master copy. Are you hoping for a blanket ban of the word "master" regardless of the context?
I'm mainly hoping to rid our technical vocabulary of non-inclusive terms, like master/slave, based on https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-knodel-terminology-00.html#r...
Again, in the context of Git, "master" is not used as in master/slave. Words can have different meanings in different contexts. Should chess players stop using "master" for their titles? Should the music industry stop calling "master" the initial recording of an album that will get replicated?
I don't think chess grandmasters should be necessarily named differently, though having a gender-neutral term would be better. Not sure about the master used in the music industry.

Do you know where 'master' originates from in the context of Git?

Yes, Petr Baudis decided on that name (and also "upstream"). [1]

He regrets it now because of his lack of English language knowledge at the time and that "main" makes more sense but he originally based it on the "master copy" concept.

I personally don't understand why people decided on this hill to die on. There are much better targets like database master-slave replication.

[1] https://twitter.com/xpasky/status/1272280760280637441

Ah interesting, thanks!

It seems then that master doesn't seem like a very loaded word in the context of git. Even so, changing it would then not be very impactful as well (not counting any CI/CD or other config that relies on the master branch name).